End of 2014 Summer

Can you believe it?  Summer is over....  Nuts!  It's been a great summer though.  Mona and I have had several nice adventures.  She has cut back work to 3 days a week which leaves lots of time for some long weekend trips.

 One of our adventures was to Glacier National Park.

This was along the hike to Avalanche Lake.  It is one of the more popular hikes in the park and for good reason.  The scenery is spectacular.

One day we took the motorcycle and road around the park.  At Logan Pass there were mountain goats way off in the distance.  This picture was taken with my little Sony camera.  It has a 30x zoom and if you prop it really tight against a hard surface, or use a tripod, you can get some good wildlife pictures.  I was surprised this turned out as well as it did as they were a very long way off.

The Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes bicycle trail is just about 1 mile from my house.  It is 73 miles of paved rail trail.  Mona surprised my by purchasing a nice road bicycle for herself so we could ride together.  Just about each time I ride the trail I see some interesting wildlife.  Once in a while there will be a moose next to, or in this case, on the trail.  The trail runs alongside the Coeur d'Alene river.  Along much of the trail, especially by my place, there are many smaller lakes and ponds that with lots of waterfowl.  I didn't know there were pelicans in the area until I saw a flock in one of the lakes.

 Last weekend we spend a few days in Nelson BC.  In one of the streams the Kokanee Salmon were running.  They are a fresh water salmon, never making it to the ocean, but still spawn up streams like their cousins.  

 And as I've said many times, here are the reasons I live in North Idaho.  This is a hike we took at Round Lake.  After the hike we fished.  The dock was pretty crowded and we didn't catch anything but it was fun none the less.

My grand daughter has started playing soccer for one of the local clubs.  She got to pick her own number so she called her aunt, who was quite the soccer player in high school and college, to find out her old jersey number.  There now is another number 15 in the family.  

Not all the summer news is good.  Since I've been here I've shard the road with only one other neighbor.  They live above me and quite literally have to drive around my house to get to theirs.  He runs his own business repairing and fabricating mining and logging equipment from this huge shop he just completed this last year.  Several evenings ago, it burned to the ground with several large trucks (semi type) and other large mining and logging equipment inside.  Insurance will cover much, but not all, of the lose.  But he is pretty resilient though so I'm pretty sure he will recover.

Now it's fall.  We've got one big adventure planned so far.  More on that in a later blog.